Please review our house plan!

10 years ago

I, like everyone else, love this forum. It has been a life saver for me through the beginning stages of home building. We have some plans that I have shown only to family at this point but could really use some unbiased opinions (no matter how bad it might be!)

A little background... Our lot is 2.64 acres and is located in Central Illinois. This is *fingers crossed* our forever home. We have been renting a very run down home while we save for this and the time has come that we need to get out. The house we are renting is full of mold and literally falling down. I am pretty sure that they plan to demo it when we move out!

We are a family of 4 (daugher 7, son 12). The home is one story with a walk out basement where the lot naturally slopes. The idea is to separate the living quarters from the sleeping quarters to reduce noise issues. The home will be facing North.

Now, my concerns before I post the plans. How bad is it to have to pass by the closet to get to the bathroom like that? I am not awfully worried about resale. I want as much natural light in the bathroom as possible. It also helps keep the bathroom further away since I am a light sleeper.

The plan is to put a counter top/cabinets on the empty wall in the laundry room to give more space for folding clothes.

That is a drop zone area by the stairwell. The stairwell leads to the basement.

Another concern is in the living room area. The dining room will be straight across from the kitchen in the back of the house which leaves a large "rectangle" for the living room. We had plans of putting an old family piano near the front door and turn that area in a 'sitting' area. While the back section will be our living room. I have contemplated moving the fireplace to the back corner but I am not sure if that is a great idea.

So, enough jabbering... Here are the plans and some rough elevations.

Thanks SO MUCH to everyone ahead of time. This is the last step in getting things finalized. I can't wait to be posting in the monthly house update thread. :)

Comments (5)

maggiepie11
10 years ago
hi pinkchrome! congratulations on getting this far!

i just have a couple thoughts, and i'm sure you'll get different opinions and angles as others start weighing in.

first, i'm not sure if the corner is the right place to move the fireplace, but i definitely agree it should be moved IF you're planning to create two separately defined areas like a living room (sofas/tv etc) separate from a sitting area with the piano. otherwise it's just floating and you're not making full use of it's function or how pretty it is to have seating around a fireplace.

that said. you could also arrange the living room furniture around the fireplace where it is now and just have space on either end for other stuff like your piano, though it's not a full on sitting room space.

maybe it's me, but i don't understand the plan of the master bathroom. are those half/privacy walls to the left of the toilet and to the left and diagonal to the shower? it looks like a very tight walkway near the vanity/toilet wall and around the shower privacy wall. and do you take enough baths to justify the size of that gigantic corner tub? take this with a grain of salt because i'm putting in a freestanding lion paw tub strictly because it's pretty and i had the space to do it this time, but i'm kind of over these giant beastly tubs that never get used and take up a huge footprint. our last bathroom was 7x15, similar to yours, and we found the bathroom just spacious enough, and there was no tub, just a large walk-in shower.

i don't think walking through the closet is bad for the master, but i'd prefer not to look into the closet when i enter the bedroom. maybe if you move the entrance to the closet around the corner. that takes up a wall for furniture placement where you already have a wall of windows and a wall with a door to the deck, so something to think about.

i can't tell what the dimensions are, but make sure you have plenty of room all the way around the island, especially where you have refrigerator openings, pantry doors, etc.

if you're doing front load washer and dryer, you can have dueling counter tops on both sides of the room for folding and organizing!

from an elevation standpoint, it's an awful lot of garage you're seeing from the front. is there any way to make that a side entry? also, i'm not an expert in this style of architecture, but the aesthetic seems very bland. have you thought about curb appeal yet?
LawPaw
10 years ago
Adding to what Maggiepie said, You may want to consider a half bath near the living area. It's going to be a nightmare keeping your kids bathroom company ready all the time.

I'd also verify your fridge dimension and unless you plan on ordering a counter depth fridge I would recess the fridge into the laundry room to achieve counter depth.

Are you planning on additional task lights for the kitchen? otherwise I'd try to get those recessed lights as near the counter edge as possible so that you aren't casting shadows over your work area when you are working.

I like the plan!
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okpokesfan
10 years ago
Your garage overwhelms your front faÃÂ§ade. If I had that much acreage, I would find a way to "hide" the garage. Good luck!
cardinal94
10 years ago
Agree on the garage being overpowering from front of house.
Think the closet/master bath configuration basically okay, but don't like closet visible from bedroom entrance. What about bringing closet up to point where pocket door is currently and having an open area walk through from bedroom to bath. That would require a different layout to master bath on the other end. That would give you a window on that walk through area. I personally would reduce the size of the master bath a small amount and have a small linen closet or shelves.
annkh_nd
10 years ago
I would flip the house 180ÃÂ° (at least!). I would not want the morning sun streaming into my bedroom windows - I would much rather have it in the kitchen and living room.

My house is 45ÃÂ° from square with the world - my living room faces SW, bedroom windows face NE. There are no windows on the NW side of the house, which is nice, since our prevailing winter winds come from that direction (and the neighbors on that side are close). With your acreage, you shouldn't be stuck with ordinal directions.

I agree about the garage issue, but I'm not sure how to fix it.